


a future in the making

by cosetties



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Communication Failure, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosetties/pseuds/cosetties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dating is confusing and so is figuring out whether you're dating in the first place. There's wooing involved. </p><p>(Noah leans in closer. “Just don’t dream him magical Chapstick. That’s just presumptuous.”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a future in the making

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to apologize for how gross and fluffy this got, but I just read the first two chapters of TRK, so no. I needed this fluff. :(

To Ronan’s delight and Adam’s chagrin, their first kiss features the Murder Squash song front and center. Ronan’s shitbox playlist is just transitioning from My Love Will Go On –  _I know you have a gigantic boner for Leo DiCaprio, Adam_  – to the first few familiar bars of the song when Adam leans over the stick shift and plants a kiss somewhere in the general vicinity of Ronan’s lips.

It’s wet, and gross, and to be honest, catches more of his chin than his mouth.

It’s better than anything Ronan could have dreamt himself.

Later, when the second verse is playing through the Hondayota’s radio, and Adam and Ronan have managed to reposition themselves so the shift isn’t digging into Adam’s stomach, Ronan says, “If I knew this song turned you on so much, I’d have played it a lot more, Parrish.”

“You’re a fucking dick.” But the way Adam regards him as something new, something to be cherished says the opposite.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” 

Adam lets his hand slip into Ronan’s. The pronounced veins, the long fingers, the callouses on the pads of Adam’s fingers all terrify him. He’s been given access to a secret. Here is a boy who has the power to tear Ronan apart but chooses this gift instead. Under the streetlight, Adam’s face, only a few inches away from Ronan’s, looks impossible.  

No, that’s not right. He looks a little  _too_  possible, a little too real.

“I feel like a teen movie cliché,” says Adam, on the verge of laughter.  

“If this ends with a musical number, I’m fucking calling it quits,” Ronan grumbles, but there’s no bite behind it.

Adam loops a hand behind Ronan’s neck, pulling him even closer. “Don’t tell Noah yet. He was watching Legally Blonde the Musical the other day.”

* * *

Everything changes, but nothing changes at all.

Adam’s body temperature must have hiked up since that night, because he feels more like a furnace the longer Ronan stays pressed against him. There’s no science to it. Maybe Ronan’s body is just becoming more aware of Adam’s, as if the way his eyes linger on Adam like a drug every time he enters a room isn’t enough.

Adam had gotten home early from the shop – something about his boss having a family emergency – so he'd already finished the homework that now lies in a neat stack at the edge of his desk. The most Adam can do now is idly flip through the pages of his Econ textbook as Ronan struggles through the last paragraph of his essay on  _Hamlet._

Adam’s becoming a good influence on him. Gansey would approve. It’s a scary thought.

Some days, the night in the Hondayota feels like a dream. Adam hasn’t made a move to kiss him since Wednesday, and Ronan won’t push him into anything he doesn’t want. They’re stuck in limbo, on the edge of something Ronan can’t name.

Adam doesn’t act any differently. He still rolls his eyes at Ronan’s stupid jokes and refuses to take any of his shit. He casually touches Ronan without any indication that he wants it to be more. Whatever this is, it only exists here. Ronan can already see it crumbling the moment it’s dragged beyond Adam’s front door. Maybe Adam doesn't even want to try. 

Sharing Adam’s spring mattress isn’t ideal, but the only chair is a cardboard box, and Ronan refuses to write a goddamn essay about existentialism when his ass isn’t even comfortable. Ronan had briefly considered suggesting his bed back at Monmouth, but he’d dismissed the thought as soon as it came. He can’t scare away Adam before they’ve had a chance to screw up even more colossally.

“How do I reword ‘life has no meaning’ to sound smart?” He props himself up on his elbow just to look down on Adam, who still smells like his vanilla shampoo. Adam’s shirt is riding up above the band of his pajama pants. Ronan’s eyes wander to the strip of skin there, right above the swell of his ass.

The ass that he had, for a moment, gotten acquainted with in the Hondayota for the first and last time. Adam may be Cabeswater’s magician, but he’d been magic long before he’d sacrificed himself. 

Adam doesn’t spare Ronan a glance, but the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Quote Nietzsche. Can’t make you more of a douchebag than you already are.”

“You stare into the abyss, abyss stares back – that bullshit? This fucking paper’s the abyss.”

Ronan types out “life sucks” in 72-point font, because he’s a dick. His elbows knock into Adam’s to see whether Adam would react. “These may be my dying words, the only document that’ll survive me when I die of fucking boredom.”

Adam snorts. “Die of dramatics, more like.”

“Just like Hamlet.”

Adam rolls over on his back. He still holds his book, but Ronan can see that he’s peeking over at Ronan’s face more than he’s reading it. If only Ronan knew what any of this  _means._

Adam gives him a considering look. “New thesis: Why Ronan Lynch is basically Hamlet because they’re both brooding assholes who always think they’re right.”

“What does that make you? Ophelia?”

Adam offers Ronan a sly grin. “Gansey could be Polonius. Face it, sometimes when he talks – “

Ronan flips over so that he’s lying side by side with Adam. “That would make him your  _dad_  – oh, shit. Damn, you’re right. Polonius in suburban dad clothes. I’m fucking contributing to academia.”

With the weight of Adam’s thigh pressing comfortably against his leg, Ronan stares at the ceiling in silence. Even with the lamps that Adam had bought to help the dim ceiling light coax the room to life, Ronan still feels boxed in. How does Adam survive like this, always feeling like his insides are too big for the spaces that confine him? 

Ronan reluctantly pulls himself back on his stomach to type properly. He only lasts another half a sentence before he pokes Adam in the shoulder. “Can we get pizza? My brain is dying the longer I look at this.”

Adam fidgets with the corner of the page to avoid meeting Ronan’s eyes. “It’s midnight. We have to be up early for school.”

“We’ll be back in an hour,” Ronan says, a little desperately.

“I’m not really hungry.”

 _I’m asking you out,_ Ronan wants to say.  _I’m asking you out on a goddamn date and you’re saying no._

“Okay,” he says instead. He doesn’t even tense – a feat in self-control. “It’s cool. We can hang out some other time.”

His act isn’t perfect. Adam furrows his brows at the strain in Ronan’s voice, but when he doesn’t offer an explanation, Adam only shrugs. “Yeah. Of course.”

* * *

Ronan doesn’t play much tennis anymore – he prefers to spend his free time at the Barns, and his tolerance for his classmates has dwindled to nonexistence. Sometimes, he misses the simplicity of whacking a ball with his racquet as hard as he can swing. Nostalgia – and a little bit of bitterness – brings him to the Aglionby tennis courts at 10, when he’s sure none of his classmates will catch him behaving like a normal human being. He has a reputation to uphold.

“Holy  _shit_ , Lynch, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to hit the ball so that it actually lands inside my half of the court,” says Noah from the other side of the net. His form is all wrong, but Ronan hadn’t bothered fixing his posture. Before playing, they’d silently agreed to let the balls roll where fate would take them. More exciting that way. The one that come closest to bouncing within the boundary line lies a good five feet from the edge of the court.  

“New rules, Czerny.” Ronan’s next hit nearly brains Noah. He ducks just in time, but gives Ronan a long string of swears for his trouble. 

“Shouldn’t Parrish be here? He can ogle you in your tennis shorts.”

The next ball smashes Noah in the stomach, and he wheels backwards, landing on his ass. Ronan doesn’t even have enough energy to laugh. 

Noah dusts himself off, glaring across the court. “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna kill me again.”

“Gansey would have a field day with that,” Ronan says, drawing circles on the ground with his racquet as he waits for Noah to regain his bearings. “He’d have to figure it what it meant for ley line energy, analyze EMF levels – “ 

Ronan nearly jumps when Noah disappears from the other side of the court and materializes right next to him, close enough for Ronan to be able to feel his breath, if he were alive. “Do you have to act like such a fucking ghost?” Ronan snarls. 

“That’s what I am.” Noah crosses his arms over his chest. “Speaking of which, do you have to act like such a fucking asshole?” When Ronan ignores him, he rolls his eyes and seizes the racquet from Ronan’s hand. Ronan lets him. “What did you and Parrish do to each other this time?” 

“No one  _did_  anything.”

“Bullshit,” Noah coughs into his fist. He’s not even subtle about it.

Ronan growls. “Fine. Parrish decided to kiss me, and when I asked him out – because that’s what normal teenagers do after they make out for an hour in a car – he shut me down. Happy?” Ronan hits another ball over the net. His eyes follow its bounce until it hits the chain link fence. 

Noah’s staring at him. “That doesn’t sound like Adam.”

“Maybe he doesn’t really like me like that. Kissed me in a moment of bad judgment. Whatever.” 

“No offense, man, but you’re pretty terrifying.”

“I don’t bite,” says Ronan. Noah gives Ronan’s leather bands – chewed almost all the way through – a pointed look. “Much,” Ronan amends. 

“Have you tried wooing him?” Noah says, without any hint of irony, because he’s a loser who probably found Gansey’s stash of period dramas. 

“I’m not wooing him. Parrish doesn’t need to be wooed.”

Noah waves his arms frantically. “Everyone needs to be wooed. Dude, I can  _help_  you.” He rubs his hands together. “I watched 27 Dresses just to get ready for this day. The kids are growing up.”

He wipes away an imaginary tear. The fucker.

“Czerny,” Ronan says with all the conviction he can muster, “I think I can handle this one alone.”

“Like you’ve been doing so far?”

Ronan’s only reply is to begin bouncing a ball against the ground.

Noah leans in closer. “Just don’t dream him magical Chapstick. That’s just presumptuous.”

* * *

Two days later, Ronan asks if Adam wants to go birthday shopping for Noah. “We’d just have to buy him the most ridiculous shit from Dollar City.” He even works up enough courage to add, “Harry’s is doing a gelato discount too. We can stop there after.”

Adam barely looks up from his laptop. It’s a new one – his old laptop had lasted five years, three viruses, and a few missing keys. Adam had saved up for months. The moment he had 600 dollars in his bank account, he’d dragged Ronan to Best Buy with him to buy the refurbished Lenovo. Ronan doesn’t get to see Adam’s face light up like that often enough. He wonders when it’ll be his turn to be the cause of it. 

“Can’t,” says Adam. “I have this scholarship application due tonight.”

They’re out grocery shopping to restock the Monmouth fridge with yogurt when Ronan asks Adam whether he’d like to see the new Star Wars.

“Work.” Adam shrugs apologetically. “And Gansey wants to go over new research.”

Ronan grits his teeth and sweeps a row of Greek yogurt into the basket without caring which flavors get caught in the mix. Blue had asked for strawberry, but fuck it. The maggot would have to deal with the fallout of his emotional repression.    

Even  _Tad Carruthers_ , of all people, notices. In Latin the next day, he’s looking between Ronan and Adam like he’s never seen them before. When Adam leans over the space between their desks to hand Ronan a pencil – because hell would freeze over before Ronan brings his own and submits to the soulsucking educational system – his eyes nearly fall out of their sockets.

“When did this happen?” Carruthers asks Adam. He's nearly bouncing in his seat as he whips his head back and forth between Ronan and Adam. 

“What?” Adam turns to Ronan as if he has the answer, but Ronan only glares at Carruthers, daring him to bother them again. It’s barely a battle of the wills. Carruthers clamps his mouth shut within five seconds and turns back to the board, where their new teacher is conjugating verbs. Carruthers is such a gossip that even a hint from him will get the Aglionby class begging for answers, especially if the aforementioned gossip involves Richard Campbell Gansey III’s two best friends. 

Outside of class, when he’s sure Carruthers can’t hear, Ronan asks, “You free for a drive tonight?”

Ronan doesn’t bother giving Adam a destination. Adam would know the answer. Nowhere. Everywhere. What does it matter?

Adam grimaces as he adjusts his backpack strap. “I promised Blue I’d help her with her English project.”

Ronan wants to punch a fucking wall, but he instead curls in fingers into fists in the pockets of his hoodie where Adam can’t see. Maybe he’d read the signs wrong after all. Adam doesn’t want him at all – how can he? His relationships deserve to be functional and stable _,_ and all Ronan can give him are a short temper and so much longing that sometimes it’s all he’s made of.

Ronan sees their entwined hands in the Hondayota differently now. Adam’s is calloused from hard work, but Ronan’s knuckles only bear the marks of past fights. He should’ve known better. 

The only solution is to get spectacularly drunk, and by the fifth shot of vodka, Ronan stops feeling the burn in his throat.

* * *

The next night when Ronan stirs awake, he’s clutching Adam’s frayed Coca-Cola shirt in his hands. It smells exactly like him. A bit like gasoline and forest, with an undertone of Henrietta. He wonders if Adam has always smelled like this, or if Cabeswater had changed that integral part of him too. The smell only makes Ronan recall the last time he’d been hit with it – not this muted down version, but the real deal. It pisses him off.

Ronan takes a swig of water from the bottle next to his bed, but it does nothing to abate his headache.

A glance at the alarm clock tells him it’s only midnight. Light shines through the crack beneath the door. Ronan can hear Gansey talking on the phone. Apparently,  _pink dolphins are a fascinating species, don’t you think, Jane?_ Ronan really does wonder how the hell Gansey exists in the real world, especially  _his_  world, which is more obsessed with money and glamour than rare animal species and dead kings.

No matter how much Gansey will deny it, he's  _pining_. For all their differences, Ronan and Gansey always seem to be on the same wavelength when it matters the most.

Ronan's phone buzzes from its bedside table. He'd usually ignore it, but Adam texts him more these days, ever since he’d gotten his shitty flip phone and a prepaid plan.

“I have to use up all these texts somehow,” Adam had said pragmatically. 

Ronan had seen right through it. Adam mostly texts him group plans –  _be here at 8 we’re going to Cabeswater, damage control at Fox Way Gwenllian discovered musicals_  – nothing out of the ordinary, but Gansey had side-eyed them once or twice anyway. Probably wondering why Ronan answers but not him. If Gansey had Adam’s home-grown Henrietta accent and bone structure, maybe Ronan would pay him special attention too.

“St. Agnes in 1 hour?” Adam’s text says.

Ronan lies back and thinks of awkward hands slipping under his shirt in a shitty car, just enough for Adam to feel his body heat, but not enough to map the muscles on Ronan’s back. He thinks of shopping carts hurtling through a parking lot at top speed, of thrill and risk and safety all at once. He thinks of belonging – whether he belongs to a place, or to someone, and how he can be pulled in different directions but stay anchored all at once.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. The result is the same. 

Ronan slips out the door without Gansey noticing and climbs into the BMW, wishing all the while he had the strength to stay, and not wishing that at all.

* * *

Ronan had forgotten his gloves, and the cold air bites at his hand when he knocks on Adam’s door. Thankfully, Adam answers almost immediately, wearing baggy sweatpants and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. Adam’s mouth is curved with the hint of a frown, and when he makes eye contact with Ronan, he grimaces. Strange welcome for someone who had fucking invited Ronan over.

“Before you come in, I just want to say,” Adam winces, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Actually, it may be better if you just see for yourself.”

“What do you have in there? A dead body?”

“Worse,” Adam says, but Ronan’s already edging past him and into the apartment.

Ronan stops in his tracks. Adam had used one of the plastic bins he’d bought from IKEA as a small table, which sits in the middle of the room. There’s one large bowl of macaroni and cheese at the center, as well as a cluster of fake flowers in a cheap vase. Two paper bowls sit at each end of the table. Tiny electric candles surround the bowl in the center, and the entire garish setup is set on a tablecloth Ronan recognizes as one of Blue’s old outfits – a t-shirt that she’d added mesh side panels to and sprayed neon.

“Sorry. Blue and Noah got involved.” Adam’s voice is faint behind Ronan.

This is too much all at once. Understanding bubbles in his gut, but filtered through the haze of confusion, it turns into annoyance, then anger.  

Ronan wheels on Adam. “Are we dating?” he demands.

A pause. Adam’s answer is hesitant. “Haven’t we  _been_  dating?”

Ronan shoves his hands into his pockets. “I asked you out. You said no.”

“That's what that was? I was busy, and I thought all of _this,_ ” Adam makes a sweeping motion at the room around them, “counted for something.”

Ronan’s beginning to get it. The touches, the casual flirting, the way Adam’s eyes had lit up unabashedly whenever a string of profanity left Ronan’s mouth.

“You haven’t kissed me in a week,” Ronan accuses.

“That’s because - shit  _damn_ , you asshole.”

Ronan is about to add that Adam could have added some more curse words in there, really, hasn’t Ronan taught him better, but Adam fists the front of Ronan’s shirt, pulling them together so they stand chest to chest. Ronan averts his eyes, stares at the junction between Adam’s neck and shoulder. But Adam puts two fingers under his chin and tilts his head until Ronan is staring at Adam’s open face.

“I didn’t want to move too fast. And you didn’t make a move either, how the hell was I supposed to know?” 

He’d made Adam’s apartment his safe haven, stared at Adam until he was only a planet caught in Adam’s orbit, hell, he’d even dreamt the boy  _hand lotion_. Ronan doesn’t know the meaning of subtlety, but maybe Adam doesn’t know the meaning of wanting something and actually getting it.  

Ronan’s hand drifts to the back of Adam’s neck as his other hand wraps around Adam’s waist. His lips stop a mere inch away from Adam’s, so they can breathe warm air into each other’s mouths. They stay like that for a minute, unmoving, bracing themselves.  Ronan had never felt more like himself in such an out-of-body experience. 

Ronan kisses Adam softly at first, slow and languid like a summer dream. Adam groans against his mouth when Ronan won’t push harder, so Ronan sucks at Adam’s bottom lip, drags his hands over Adam’s back to pull him closer. Adam becomes fluid in Ronan’s arms, his hands reaching for every part of Ronan. It feels like he's trying to pull Ronan apart, only to put him back together. 

When they finally part, Ronan’s oxygen level is at a dangerous low. “Is this enough of a hint for you?” he asks breathlessly.

Adam nods quickly, his lips bruised and puffy.  _Ronan_ had done that. 

Ronan turns his head to survey the setup behind him. Fancy dinner for two, right here in this space Ronan and Adam had carved out for themselves.

Adam hides his face in Ronan’s shoulder. “I didn’t have time to make anything else. Noah said it was an emergency.” 

“You’re such an idiot. It’s a little embarrassing,” Ronan tells Adam. He cuffs Adam gently on the back of his head. Adam glares at him indignantly, and Ronan once again has access to his lips for round two.

Separating is easier this time, both because they’ve burned the desperation out of their systems and because the prospect of cold cheese at 1 AM the night before a Latin test sounds like something to be avoided. Ronan and Adam sit on the floor cross-legged on each side of the table, still holding hands.

There’s nothing special about Adam scooping an extra helping of mac ‘n cheese onto Ronan’s plate, or the blush that rises up on Ronan’s cheeks. There’s nothing unique about the way the corner of Adam’s mouth tugs up involuntarily. There’s nothing significant about Adam’s foot reaching across the space between them to nudge at Ronan’s leg, which loosens where it’s crossed over his other one. They’re just two teenagers sitting together in a tiny apartment above a church in a world with a million other teenagers with their breath caught in their throats, a million other togethers, a million maybes in the making.

“Bed?” Adam says when they’ve had their fill. It’s a clear invitation. Adam’s mattress will hardly be an upgrade from his floor, but it feels like a victory all the same.

Fuck it. This is a singular experience.  _Adam Parrish_  is a singular experience.

“Only if you don’t steal the goddamn blankets,” Ronan tells him. “Loser,” he adds, just so they’re clear. 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry about the gangsey with me on [tumblr](http://www.bisexualpeggy.tumblr.com)


End file.
